We make art from trash
I hung out with my pal Matt yesterday. We collected some materials from the Pittsburgh Center for Creative Re-use and, raccoon-like, decided to make art from trash.
Matt applied some gesso to some art board we picked up at Artist and Craftsman Supply, and we got to cutting.
We decided to make two collages, and to play a game. I began with the first one, and Matt began with the second. Then we took turns. In the second round, I added to the second collage, and he to the first, and we alternated in this way for 40-ish turns.
And the resulting collages
Pittsburgh takes lenten fish fry season seriously
John Cage and the prerogatives of syntax
I've been reading artists and poets who experiment with computers in their work, and recently that's meant John Cage. I've been opening his delightfully inventive Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse) at random lately. It's a fun book; the composition, color, and even the font of each "diary" entry are based on aleatory operations. I picked up a mint used copy at the delightful Topos books last year, but only just got around to reading it.
I opened to this page after watching the cruelty that unfolded in the White House yesterday, during which our adolescent leaders berated and bullied the leader of Ukraine , a vulnerable country under attack by a rapacious larger power. So much imperative in the belligerent demands for resources, so much obedience and deference demanded without offering so much as a word of respect in return.
If you're poor, it's illegal. If you're
rich, you're automatically within the law
And, later
Syntax, like
government, can only be obeyed. It is
therefore of no use except when you
have something particular to command
such as: Go buy me a bunch of carrots.
Dear colleague
This "Dear Colleague" letter , sent by the Department of Education to institutions of higher education late last week, is exactly what you would do if you were trying to use the logic of liberalism in the service of a narrow authoritarianism.
And as easily as it fell in line with progressive orthodoxy, the academy twists itself in knots to bow to the reaction against it.